Crypto ETF weekly outflows hit $593 million as ether bleeds

Crypto ETF weekly outflows totaled about $593 million in the five sessions to Friday, Oct. 16, according to figures compiled by Bitcoin.com News. That was down 52% from the previous week's $1.2 billion of withdrawals, but it still marked another week in which U.S.-listed spot funds lost assets across bitcoin, ether and solana.

What happened

Over the five sessions, spot bitcoin ETFs shed roughly $228.6 million, after a $681 million exit the week before. Daily flows swung from a $175.62 million inflow on Tuesday to a $261.46 million outflow on Wednesday, ending with $82.39 million of redemptions on Friday. Monday opened with a $65.40 million exit, and Thursday brought only a marginal $5.06 million inflow.

BlackRock's IBIT accounted for the largest weekly outflow at $165.4 million, followed by Fidelity's FBTC at $60.2 million, while Morgan Stanley's MSBT took in $6.7 million. Total bitcoin ETF net assets stood at $104.29 billion. ACIS Research, citing Farside data, put the weekly bitcoin figure at $228.4 million.

Ether funds fared worse. Spot ether ETFs lost about $320 million, and assets fell to $14.95 billion. A $24.84 million inflow on Tuesday briefly broke a 10-day losing streak, but the funds then lost $129.51 million on Wednesday, $60.22 million on Thursday and $69.68 million on Friday. Solana ETFs shed $25.52 million and have now recorded 10 consecutive trading days of outflows, a sharp turn for a category that had enjoyed 14 straight weeks of inflows. Assets in those funds stood at $1.62 billion, and SOL itself fell about 4.6% over the week.

Why it matters

The pattern shows institutional money pulling back from altcoins faster than from bitcoin. Ether ETF outflows over three weeks are near $1 billion, extending the bleed we tracked in our ether ETF outflow streak report. Trading activity also cooled: bitcoin ETF turnover fell to $10.11 billion from $11.44 billion, and ether ETF volume dropped about 34% to $3.44 billion.

Prices reflect the selling. Bitcoin traded near $82,827 and ether at $2,435 on Binance on the morning of Oct. 19, according to ACIS. Bitcoin was about 1.0% lower and ether 4.7% lower than at the firm's prior snapshot, extending the slide that followed the $681 million bitcoin ETF outflow a week earlier.

Smaller products did not escape. Hyperliquid-linked funds lost $17.57 million, Zcash products $19.15 million and XRP funds $1.84 million. One of the few bright spots was a Bitwise fund tied to NEAR, which took in $11.65 million. Crypto ETF weekly outflows of this breadth suggest investors are cutting risk across the board, not rotating between coins.

What's next

The mix of lower turnover and steady redemptions suggests institutional enthusiasm for crypto remains restrained, Bitcoin.com News said. Daily fund-by-fund flow data is published by Farside Investors, which makes the next few sessions easy to track.

The largest fund, IBIT, is the one to watch. Two or three days of net creations would hint that crypto ETF weekly outflows are bottoming, while another week of ether redemptions would keep pressure on the second-largest cryptocurrency.